Twitter starts advertising outside its own social network

Twitter has begun rolling out a new revenue stream that will see its core ‘Promoted Tweet’ appear on other sites and services, starting with Flipboard and Yahoo! Japan.

The vision goes much further than that and Twitter is planning to make it possible for its Promoted Tweets to flow seamlessly from Twitter to other mediums, such as TV, websites and mobile apps.

The move will no doubt significantly expand Twitter’s reach and revenues, which will also keep Wall Street happy about Twitter’s future direction.

In the third quarter of 2014, there were 185bn tweet impressions within Twitter alone, the social network revealed.

What a Nissan Promoted Tweet would look like rendered in a Flipboard app

From today onwards, Twitter syndicated ads will be seen on third parties’ sites and services, starting with Flipboard and Yahoo! Japan.

Twitter is now a big ad agency

The move comes just days after Twitter introduced a new 30-second long video feature for its app, as well as a new Group DMs feature.

“For example, let’s say Nissan is running a Promoted Tweet campaign on Twitter, but also trying to reach a similar audience on a mobile application like Flipboard,” said Twitter senior director of product Ameet Ranadive.

“Through this new partnership, Nissan could run a Promoted Tweet campaign on Twitter, with specific creative and targeting, and simultaneously run the campaign off Twitter, with the same targeting and creative in the Flipboard app.

“Best of all, because Flipboard already integrates organic tweets into the app, the Promoted Tweet will have the same look and feel that is native to the Flipboard experience,” Ranadive said.

He said that currently thousands of web and mobile apps syndicate tweets via products such as Fabric and Twitter for Websites.

“Combine that with the flexibility and control of a Promoted Tweet, and we think marketers will have an almost infinite capacity to create large-scale, rich and well-targeted advertising campaigns across a variety of platforms. In a small number of private tests with Flipboard, both Flipboard and our advertising partners saw promising results.”